CATALOGVE  OF 
AM  EXHiiBfTlON  OF  THE 
WO{?KS  OF 

CONSTANTIN  MEVMIER 

DEC.  2;7,  t^t:^^  JAM,  f8,  1944 

CARNEGiE  fMSTITVTE 

PITTSBVRGH 


MCMXlli 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/specialexhibitioOOcarn 


Special  Exhibition  Catalogue 


Constantin  Meunier 

By 

Christian  Brinton 


Carnegie  Institute 

Pittsburgh 

December  Twenty-seventh — January  Eighteenth 
1913-1914 


Copyright,  1913 
By^CHRisTiAN  Brinton 

First  Impression 
8000  Copies 


Redfield  Brothers,  Incorporated 
New  York 


Carnegie  Institute 


TRUSTEES 

WILLIAM  N.  FREW,  President 
JOHN  D.  SHAFEE,  Vice-President 
JAMES  H.  REED,  Treasurer 
SAMUEL  H.  CHURCH,  Secretary 


Taylor  Allderdice 
Edward  M.  Bigelow 
John  A.  Brashear 
Joseph  BufBngton 
Samuel  H.  Church 
George  H.  Clapp 
Josiah  Cohen 
A.  C.  Dinkey 
Herbert  DuPuy 
R.  A.  Franks 
William  N.  Frew 
Robert  Garland 
J.  M.  Goehring 
Howard  Heinz 
W.  A.  Hoeveler 
James  F.  Hudson 
Dr.  J.  P.  Kerr 
Rev.  A.  A.  Lambing 


Martin  B.  Leisser 
William  McConway 
George  A.  Macbeth 
James  R.  Macfarlane 
William  A.  Magee 
Andrew  W.  Mellon 
Augustus  K.  Oliver 
David  B.  Oliver 
Henry  K.  Porter 
Enoch  Rauh 
James  H.  Reed 
W.  Lucien  Scaife 
John  D.  Shafer 
George  E.  Shaw 
Charles  L.  Taylor 
A.  Bryan  W^all 
W.  G.  Wilkins 
Dr.  S.  S.  Woodburn 


FINE  ARTS  COMMITTEE 


GEORGE  E.  SHAW 
Chairman 

EDWARD  M.  BIGELOW 

WILLIAM  N.  FREW 

MARTIN  B.  LEISSER 

WILLIAM  McCONWAY 

A.  BRYAN  WALL 

DR.  S.  S.  WOODBURN 


DIRECTOR  OF  FINE  ARTS 
JOHN  W.  BEATTY,  MA. 


Sculpture  should  be  the  most 
exclusive  of  the  arts.  It  should  ex- 
press only  certain  rare  and  irre- 
proachably beautiful  phases  of  life, 
form,  and  mortal  joy  or  suffering. 
Every  plastic  manifestation  that  fails 
of  this  is  a  species  of  lasting  and 
inexcusable  crime.  In  our  day 
Rodin  and  Meunier,  the  one  in  the 
realm  of  passion,  the  other  in  the 
field  of  labour,  are  the  sole  sculptors 
who  have  succeeded  in  seizing  a  few 
of  these  significant  moments,  these 
sublime  movements. 

Maeterlinck. 


5 


Photo.  Alexandre,  Brussels 


CONSTANTIN  MEUNIER 


6 


BIOGRAPHICAL 


Ma  vie  est  toute  de  travail  et  de  reve. 

THE  simple,  earnest  words  you  see  above 
characterize  as  nothing  else  could  the  life  of 
the  man  whose  art  you  have  come  here  to 
study  and  admire.  His  was  in  truth  an  existence 
fraught  with  work  and  dreams.  The  work  was 
arduous,  the  dreams  full  of  gentle,  mystic  fervour. 
Few  artists  have  encountered  so  many  obstacles. 
Ill  health,  poverty,  prolonged  obscurity,  each  fell 
to  his  lot  in  ample  portion,  and  yet  in  due  course 
he  surmounted  all.  Though  he  lived  to  realize  in 
goodly  number  his  conceptions  of  form,  colour,  and 
movement,  he  exclaimed  toward  the  end,  with 
kindling  eye  and  eager  tone,  "What  I  would  do 
surpasses  by  far  all  I  have  done."  He  was  never 
satisfied.  He  remodelled  statue  after  statue,  and 
group  after  group,  striving  to  get  closer  and  closer 
to  the  outward  verity  and  the  inner  vision.  He 
left  behind  him  a  valiant,  sombre  army  in  bronze 
and  plaster,  yet,  like  the  true  creative  spirit  he 
was,  his  brain  still  teemed  with  thoughts  and 
themes  never  to  find  definite  shape  and  semblance. 

Constantin  Meunier  was  born  April  12,  1831,  at 
Etterbeek,  in  the  suburbs  of  Brussels,  the  son  of  an 
impecunious  tax  collector,  who,  despondent  over 


7 


the  loss  of  his  position,  abruptly  left  his  wife  and 
six  small  children  to  face  the  hazards  of  fortune  as 
best  they  might.  Delicate  and  sensitively  organ- 
ized, the  boy  never  became  wholly  strong,  and  at 
frequent  intervals  had  to  be  sent  to  the  seaside  or 
taken  from  school  because  of  his  frail  physique. 
The  family  had  meanwhile  moved  to  a  modest 
house  in  the  place  du  petit  Sablon,  where  the  widow 
rented  her  few  spare  rooms  and  the  daughters  sup- 
ported themselves  as  dressmakers.  Situated  in  the 
centre  of  the  city  near  the  galleries  and  museums, 
the  Meunier  home  naturally  became  a  rendezvous 
for  artists,  and  it  was  in  this  atmosphere  that 
Constantin  first  received  encouragement  to  devote 
himself  to  his  future  career.  While  the  engraver, 
Calamatta,  and  the  talented  Belgian  landscape 
painter,  Theodore  Fourmois,  both  evinced  a  kindly 
interest  in  him,  it  was  his  own  elder  brother,  Jean- 
Baptiste,  who  may  be  called  his  earliest  preceptor. 

Trained  as  a  journeyman  typographer,  and  later 
an  engraver  of  considerable  merit,  Jean-Baptiste 
Meunier  exercised  a  salutary  influence  over  the 
shy,  shambling  lad  whom  all  regarded  with  undis- 
guised misgiving.  Thinking  that  manual  labour 
might  prove  beneficial  to  his  health  there  had  been 
some  talk  of  placing  him  with  a  local  carpenter. 
So  rapid  however  was  his  progress  under  his 
brother's  guidance  that  within  a  brief  period  he  was 
ready  to  join  the  classes  at  the  Academy,  and  sub- 


8 


sequently  entered  the  studio  of  the  sculptor, 
Fraikin.  Yet  he  was  not  fated  to  remain  long  in 
this  atmosphere  of  correct  officialism  and  vapid 
charm.  The  art  of  Fraikin  was  innately  distasteful 
to  him,  and  it  is  by  no  means  to  his  discredit  that 
he  tended  the  stove  with  as  much  zest,  and  moist- 
ened the  clay  with  as  much  zeal,  as  was  brought  to 
bear  upon  more  ambitious  problems.  After  two 
years  of  faithful  though  distasteful  apprenticeship 
he  left  Fraikin,  paying  dutiful  tribute  to  academic 
insipidity  with  The  Garland,  exhibited  at  the 
Brussels  Salon  of  1851. 

It  was  natural  that  a  young  man  possessing  the 
reflective  temperament  which  was  the  peculiar 
birthright  of  Constantin  Meunier  should  soon  seek 
a  more  convincing  medium  of  expression  than  was 
to  be  found  in  the  artificial  abstraction  so  typical 
of  French  and  Flemish  sculpture  of  the  mid-cen- 
tury. There  seemed  more  scope  for  his  talents  in 
painting,  so  to  painting  he  forthwith  turned,  begin- 
ning his  studies  with  Navez,  a  former  pupil  of 
David  and  a  reasonably  virile  exponent  of  the  fast- 
vanishing  classic  tradition.  The  superior  freedom 
of  crayon  and  oils  appealed  strongly  to  the  sensi- 
bilities of  one  whose  creative  enthusiasm  had  been 
chilled  by  the  stilted  conventions  of  Fraikin  and 
his  school.  His  first  picture  of  importance, 
a  Ward  in  the  Hospital  of  Saint-Roch,  revealed 
the  influence  of  his  friend,  Charles  De  Groux,  for 


9 


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5^ 


whom  he  evinced  a  marked  personal  and  artistic 
sympathy.  They  both  married  young,  and  forced 
to  provide  for  increasing  famihes,  found  it  neces- 
sary to  devote  themselves  to  work  which  would 
insure  immediate  pecuniary  return.  Side  by  side 
like  two  patient,  anonymous  medieval  craftsmen, 
they  designed  stained  glass  windows  for  the  eccle- 
siastical decorator,  Capronnier,  painted  stations  of 
the  cross  for  various  local  churches,  and  even  made 
drawings  for  cheap  printed  kerchiefs.  At  Louvain, 
Chatelineau,  and  elsewhere  throughout  the  prov- 
ince of  Liege  may  still  be  seen  tasks  fashioned  by 
the  sweat  of  their  brows  and  the  blood  of  their 
starved  artist  souls. 

Insensibly  and  mayhap  through  some  latent 
religious  atavism  Meunier's  ardent,  contemplative 
spirit  had  already  been  drawn  toward  the  shadows 
of  the  cloister  and  the  esthetic  possibilities  of 
sacred  theme.  Oppressed  by  the  sorrow  and 
penury  about  him  and  seeking  perchance  solace  or 
self-immolation,  he  passed  considerable  time,  as 
Verhaeren  afterward  did,  among  the  Trappist 
monks  at  Westmalle,  in  the  Antwerp  Campine. 
The  sequestration  in  each  instance  proved  fruitful, 
the  painter's  Burial  of  a  Trappist,  in  the  Courtrai 
Museum,  being  eloquently  paralleled  by  the  zealous 
exaltation  of  the  poet's  Friars.  In  the  Stoning  of 
Saint  Stephen  the  note  becomes  more  forceful  and 
dramatic,  yet  always  Meunier  must  have  felt  that 


11 


such  motives,  however  pleading  and  human,  did 
not  afford  his  talents  definitive  expression.  It  was 
inevitable  that  he  should  have  sought  to  widen  his 
sympathies,  to  enrich  a  somewhat  austere,  ascetic 
palette.  Just  as  Maeterlinck  later  turned  from 
Ruysbroeck  the  Admirable  to  the  Treasure  of  the 
Humble,  so  Constantin  Meunier  gradually  drifted 
from  the  passivity  of  monastic  influence  into  a 
broader  fellowship  and  brotherhood.  Bowed  fig- 
ures in  dim,  grey  chapel  and  those  tortured  images 
of  Christ  on  wayside  cross  seemed  after  all  less 
beseeching  than  the  poor  labourer  who  hurried  by 
making  the  sign. 

The  climax  of  his  religious,  as  of  his  historical 
naturalism,  was  attained  in  the  canvas  entitled 
The  Peasants'  War,  first  shown  in  1875  and  now 
hanging  in  the  Modern  Gallery,  Brussels.  He  had 
all  the  while  been  confronting  reality  with  increas- 
ing conviction,  and  when,  a  couple  of  years  later, 
circumstances  brought  him  into  direct  contact  with 
life  in  the  teeming  industrial  centres  of  Liege,  he 
instinctively  felt  that  the  true  pathway  lay  open 
before  him.  An  opportune  commission  to  furnish 
designs  for  a  triumphal  float  depicting  typical 
scenes  in  the  Pays  noir  caused  him  to  under- 
take a  systematic  tour  of  the  region,  and  from 
thence  onward  there  was  no  hint  of  doubt  or  inde- 
cision. Among  the  initial  results  of  his  sojourn 
with  the  glassblowers  of  Val  Saint-Lambert  was 


The  Broken  Crucible  of  1880,  an  ambitious  episode 
treated  in  pseudo-historical  vein.  Yet  before  long 
he  was  to  cast  off  convention  and  move  forward 
after  his  own  sober,  deliberate  fashion. 

From  Val  Saint-Lambert  he  proceeded  to  study 
the  puddlers  and  foundrymen  of  the  vast  Cockerill 
establishment  at  Seraing.  The  earliest  record  of 
his  stay  in  the  Black  Country  proper  was  the 
Descent  of  the  Miners.  All  along  that  stifling, 
leprous  belt  which  stretches  from  Liege  toCharleroi, 
and  from  Charleroi  to  Mons,  he  watched  these 
accursed  sons  of  Cain  fulfilling  their  sinister  des- 
tiny. At  Frameries  and  Paturages  he  found  them 
stunted,  deformed,  and  stamped  with  tragic  depres- 
sion, though  for  the  most  part  they  displayed  a 
silent  heroism  and  primal  energy  that  turned  pity 
into  admiration.  Still  he  did  not  spend  the  entire 
time  indoors  or  underground  among  creatures 
more  like  antique  troglodytes  than  human  beings. 
He  also  went  abroad  in  the  sun  with  the  mower  and 
the  happy  harvester  or  strolled  along  the  Antwerp 
water  front  watching  the  great  ships  load  and 
unload.  It  was  work  which  he  chose  for  his  theme, 
work  and  the  workman  in  their  every  phase. 

Interrupted  by  a  trip  to  Spain  during  the  winter 
of  1882-3,  whither  he  had  been  sent  by  the  Govern- 
ment to  make  a  copy  of  Kempeneer's  Descent  from 
the  Cross,  in  the  Seville  cathedral,  Meunier,  directly 
upon  his  return,  resumed  activity  in  the  Borinage. 


13 


While  he  painted  a  number  of  pictures  and  filled 
countless  note  books  with  vigorous  and  veracious 
sketches,  it  was  the  plastic  force  and  beauty  of  the 
labourer  that  most  impressed  him.  It  was  indeed 
not  long  before  painting  became  secondary  to  the 
claims  of  sculpture.  All  the  man's  passion  for 
form  which  had  thus  far  lain  dormant  surged  forth 
with  resistless  impetus.  He  seemed  actually  to 
grow  younger,  to  undergo  a  species  of  physical  as 
well  as  esthetic  rebirth.  Although  past  fifty  and 
beset  with  poverty  and  family  cares,  this  courage- 
ous soul  had  the  fortitude  to  begin  his  life  work 
afresh.  At  the  outset  he  modelled  tiny  figures  in 
wax,  which  though  crude  were  characteristic  in  pose 
and  rich  in  vital  intensity.  Within  a  few  brief  years 
he  had  attained  the  accent  of  assured  mastery. 

The  first  work  in  three  dimensions  was  the  head 
of  a  puddler,  executed  in  relief  in  the  studio  which 
he  then  occupied  in  the  rue  de  la  Consolation. 
Undertaken  in  a  spirit  of  relaxation  it  proved  so 
successful  that  he  shortly  essayed  more  ambitious 
subjects.  The  Hammerman  and  the  Puddler  Rest- 
ing, completed  respectively  in  1 884  and  1885,  marked 
the  real  inception  of  his  career.  The  fight  for 
recognition  was  nevertheless  long  and  bitter. 
Although  their  appearance  synchronized  with  the 
rise  of  the  Labour  Party  in  Belgium  and  elsewhere, 
few  grasped  the  significance,  either  social  or 
esthetic,  of  these  majestic  giants  of  forge  and  fur- 


14 


CONST ANTIN  MEUNIER  (1887) 
Portrait  by  the  late  Isidore  Verheyden 


15 


nace,  or  felt  they  possessed  any  special  claim  to 
consideration.  It  was  naturally  difficult  for  an 
artist  who  had  suddenly  changed  his  medium  to 
secure  commissions,  and,  dubious  as  to  the  future, 
Meunier  felt  constrained  to  accept  the  professor- 
ship of  painting  at  the  Louvain  Academy,  a  post 
he  had  vainly  solicited  during  ten  weary,  wasting 
years.  For  family  considerations  alone  the  sacri- 
fice was  made,  so  in  1886  he  forsook  his  humble 
quarters  in  Brussels  for  the  grey,  quiescent  town  of 
Father  Damien. 

And  yet  this  apparent  renunciation  did  not  prove 
fruitless,  for  it  was  here  that  the  man  revealed  the 
true  measure  of  his  artistic  power  and  displayed  to 
the  full  his  sympathy  with  the  sad,  ennobling 
beauty  of  toil.  Instead  of  being  a  barren  exile,  the 
eight  years  passed  at  Louvain  became  the  vigil  of 
his  glory.  He  worked  unremittingly,  pausing  only 
to  attend  classes.  Statue  followed  statue  and 
group  succeeded  group  until  he  had  almost  com- 
pleted that  valiant  hymn  to  labour  which  marks  the 
climax  of  his  life  effort.  The  majority  of  these 
passive,  cyclopean  creatures,  as  well  as  numerous 
busts  and  reliefs,  were  either  planned  or  in  part 
executed  at  Louvain.  And  it  was  but  fitting  that 
Louvain  should  have  commissioned  him  to  under- 
take the  monument  to  her  son  who  had  given  his 
life  that  he  might  succour  the  outcasts  of  a  far-off 
Pacific  isle. 


16 


The  studio  in  which  this  earnest,  patriarchal  man 
laboured  from  dawn  until  nightfall  was  situated  in 
the  quiet  rue  des  Recollets,  and  had  formerly  served 
as  the  dissecting  room  of  the  near-by  medical  fac- 
ulty of  the  University.  Erected  in  1744  by  the 
celebrated  Docteur  Rega,  it  was  a  grim,  sepulchral 
structure,  tower-shaped  and  pierced  by  narrow, 
arched  windows,  some  of  which  were  roughly 
boarded  over.  The  interior  was  dim  even  at  mid- 
day, for  the  walls  were  darkened  by  the  moisture 
of  ages.  In  the  seclusion  of  this  somnolent,  scho- 
lastic town,  the  silence  broken  only  by  the  sound  of 
distant  bells,  or  the  footfall  of  some  passing  semi- 
narist, Meunier  worked  out  his  salvation  alone  and 
unaided.  He  never  had  an  assistant,  preferring  to 
build  the  fire  and  execute  the  most  rudimentary 
tasks  with  his  own  hands.  His  movements,  while 
apparently  deliberate,  were  in  reality  swift  and  full 
of  restless  precision.  He  seemed  made  only  of 
nerves  and  bone.  Absorbed  in  his  work,  he  would 
light  and  relight  his  pipe  twenty  times  in  succession, 
smiling  at  his  forgetfulness,  and,  when  things  were 
going  well,  would  softly  whistle  a  strain  from  one 
of  his  favourite  Wagner  operas. 

Pale,  long-bearded  and  clad  in  dark  blue  beret 
and  flowing  grey  blouse,  Constantin  Meunier 
wrought  with  the  solemn  preoccupation  of  one  pre- 
forming a  sacred  office.  Guided  by  the  inherent 
simplicity  and  grandeur  of  his  own  nature,  he 


17 


looked  at  all  things  simply  and  grandly,  his  Classic 
singleness  of  purpose  tinged  with  Christian  sorrow 
and  self-sacrifice.  Mystic  to  the  core,  he  was  at 
times  the  prey  of  hallucinations  more  or  less  vivid. 
He  appeared  to  be  in  constant  communication  with 
the  great  spirits  of  the  past.  The  impress  of  things 
gone  and  the  shadows  of  things  to  come  were 
always  upon  him.  ''I  am  never  alone  here,"  he 
would  often  say,  referring  to  the  dust  of  countless 
departed  souls  who  seemed  still  to  haunt  the  place. 
His  psychic  susceptibility  was  moreover  by  no 
means  purely  fanciful,  for  the  precise  hour  his 
younger  son  George,  the  beloved  ''marin,"  died  at 
sea,  he  had  an  explicit  presentment  of  the  event. 
This  blow,  coupled  with  the  loss  a  few  weeks  pre- 
viously of  his  talented  elder  son  Karl,  turned 
Meunier's  eyes  once  again  toward  the  solace  of 
sacred  theme.  A  pitiful,  tortured  Ecce  Homo,  a 
Prodigal  Son  full  of  filial  trust  and  paternal  for- 
giveness, and  a  Pieta  are  the  mute  records  of  his 
suffering  and  resignation. 

A  wish  to  leave  the  scene  of  his  bereavement, 
together  with  the  necessity  for  better  facilities  in 
order  to  finish  the  monumental  groups  already 
under  way  caused  Meunier  to  return  to  Brussels. 
In  the  old  days  of  obscure,  unrewarded  struggle  he 
had  lived  first  in  the  rue  des  Secours  and  afterward 
in  the  rue  de  la  Consolation.  On  this  occasion  he 
settled  in  the  rue  Albert  De  Latour,  also  in  the  sub- 


19 


urb  of  Schaerbeek,  later  moving  with  his  friend 
Verheyden  to  59  rue  de  I'Abbaye.  Although  his 
step  was  slower,  and  his  shoulders  drooped  even 
more  beneath  the  double  weight  of  grief  and  in- 
creasing infirmity,  he  devoted  himself  valiantly  to 
his  art,  completing  in  rapid  succession  several 
important  commissions  in  addition  to  numerous 
portrait  busts  of  well-known  figures  in  the  world 
of  art,  science,  letters,  and  music. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  describe  in  detail  the  produc- 
tion of  this  period.  The  various  puddlers  and 
miners  in  significant  attitudes,  the  stately,  repose- 
ful Dockhand,  The  Sower  for  the  Botanical  Garden, 
and  the  noble  equestrian  entitled  At  the  Water- 
ing Place  for  the  square  Ambiorix  are  already 
classic  examples  of  his  art.  Never  robust,  and 
realizing  that  his  days  were  numbered,  Meunier 
dedicated  his  few  remaining  years  to  that  Monu- 
ment to  Labour  which  constitutes  his  crowning 
achievement  and  the  eloquent  synthesis  of  his 
entire  career.  Conscious  of  the  difficulties  to  be 
encountered,  he  sought  Government  aid,  on  failing 
to  obtain  which  he  undertook  the  work  himself, 
piece  by  piece.  Dominated  by  the  epic  form  of 
The  Sower,  flanked  by  the  four  reliefs  entitled 
respectively  Industry,  The  Harvest,  The  Port,  and 
The  Mine,  with  figures  about  the  base  depicting 
Maternity  and  certain  familiar  industrial  types, 
Constantin  Meunier's  canticle  in  praise  of  work 


20 


CONSTANTIN  MEUNIER 

From  the  drawing  by  Max  Liebermann 


21 


ranks  as  one  of  the  most  impressive  conceptions  in 
the  history  of  sculpture.  It  was  his  supreme  legacy 
to  the  world,  and  while  he  never  witnessed  its 
actual  installation,  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  know- 
ing, before  the  end  came,  that  it  was  purchased  by 
the  State  and  would  eventually  be  placed  in  the 
Main  Hall  of  the  new  Palais  du  Mont  des-Arts. 

Though  it  was  only  within  the  last  decade  of  his 
long,  arduous  existence  that  Meunier  may  be  said 
to  have  come  into  his  own,  there  gathered  about 
him  during  the  late  'eighties  and  early  'nineties  a 
little  band  of  enthusiasts  who  did  their  utmost  to 
make  his  art  known  and  understood.  This  hand- 
ful of  supporters  to-day  cherish  unforgettable  mem- 
ories. They  have  watched  a  sustained  and  reso- 
lute symmetry  issue  from  that  which  was  rough 
and  tentative.  They  have  seen  gropings  and  hesi- 
tations end  in  a  grand,  though  troubled  triumph. 
And  yet  no  one  dreamed  that  he  would  be  able  to 
accomplish  what  he  did,  for  none  could  have 
measured  that  tenacity  of  spirit  which  kept  this 
gaunt,  loosely-knit  frame  together  and  stiffened 
this  sensitive  soul  for  each  fresh  task. 

The  first  of  that  memorable  series  of  exhibitions 
which  were  to  sweep  in  silent  succession  over  the 
face  of  Europe  and  finally  cross  the  ocean  to  you 
was  held  within  the  restricted  compass  of  the  Salle 
Saint-Cyr,  in  the  rue  Royale,  Brussels.  An  elo- 
quent exposition  of  Meunier's  art  was  made  in  the 


22 


presence  of  some  hundred  auditors  by  the  eminent 
barrister,  M.  Edmond  Picard.  As  the  assembly 
moved  about  among  these  grave,  toil-stained 
figures,  so  freighted  with  human  sympathy  and 
resolute  esthetic  integrity,  there  was  none  of  the 
customary  aimless  chatter.  The  occasion  was  a 
solemn  one,  and  much  the  same  atmosphere  pre- 
vailed throughout  the  duration  of  the  vastly  more 
important  and  comprehensive  display  at  Bing's 
Salon  de  I'Art  nouveau  in  the  rue  de  Provence, 
Paris,  in  February  and  March  1896. 

It  was  this  latter  exhibition  which  more  than 
anything  assured  the  reputation  of  Constantin 
Meunier.  Having  conquered  the  suffrage  of  Paris, 
it  was  comparatively  easy  to  win  the  other  Euro- 
pean capitals.  It  is  however  in  Germany  that 
Meunier  has  met  with  the  most  enthusiastic  and 
discriminating  appreciation,  Dredsen,  Berlin,  Mu- 
nich, and  Vienna  having  repeatedly  honoured 
themselves  in  honouring  him  and  his  art.  He  is 
to-day  represented  in  nearly  every  Continental 
museum  of  importance,  the  most  extensive  collec- 
tion of  his  work  being  in  the  Ny  Carlsberg  Glypto- 
tek,  Copenhagen,  though  Brussels  falls  not  far 
behind  in  possessing  almost  intact  the  Monument 
to  Labour  besides  numerous  miscellaneous  figures 
of  importance. 

Although  for  years  his  existence  had  been  dark 
and  stressful,  the  twilight  of  Meunier's  life  was 


23 


P5 
P 
O 
M 
< 

H 
W 

o 


suffused  with  peace  and  security.  When  at  length 
he  had  a  home  which  he  might  safely  call  his  own 
he  used  to  say,  with  touching  relief,  ''I  am  not 
afraid  now  when  the  door-bell  rings,"  knowing 
there  was  no  further  dread  of  creditor  or  bailiff. 
And  yet  the  spectre  of  poverty  and  want  was  hard 
to  banish  from  his  mind.  Worn  and  wellnigh 
decrepit,  he  would  often,  in  Paris  or  elsewhere, 
tramp  long  distances,  unmindful  that  he  had  ample 
funds  to  take  a  cab.  Though  a  constant  sufferer 
from  heart  trouble,  there  was  on  the  whole  a 
gentle  serenity  about  those  few,  lingering  weeks. 
The  studio  was  situated  in  the  verdant  suburb  of 
Ixelles.  All  around  was  the  green  of  springtime, 
the  brightness  of  the  sun.  Pigeons  cooed  under  the 
eaves,  birds  carolled  in  the  tree-tops,  and  from 
across  the  way  floated  snatches  of  song.  With  that 
singular  fitness  and  consistency  which  had  marked 
his  entire  career,  Constantin  Meunier  died  on  the 
very  month  and  in  the  city  of  his  birth.  All  day 
Monday,  April  3,  1905,  he  spent  working  on  the 
figure  of  Fecundity  for  the  base  of  the  Zola  Monu- 
ment originally  intended  for  the  Tuileries  Gardens. 
He  retired  early,  rested  well,  and  before  seven 
the  following  morning  had  started  for  the  studio 
when  he  was  seized  with  a  sudden  spasm  of 
suffocation  and  expired  after  a  few  moments 
and  without  actually  regaining  consciousness. 
It  was  the  intention  of  the  family  to  have  had 


25 


the  funeral  services  preserve  an  intimate,  private 
character,  but  so  widespread  was  pubhc  sympathy 
that  the  affair  spontaneously  assumed  the  aspect 
of  a  veritable  civic  and  artistic  apotheosis.  The 
procession  on  the  morning  of  the  sixth  was  dignified 
and  imposing,  the  church  of  Sainte-Croix  was  filled 
to  overflowing,  and  the  scene  at  the  graveside  in 
the  cemetery  of  Ixelles  was  memorable  in  its  sincere 
and  reverent  homage. 

Since  his  death  appreciation  of  Meunier's  posi- 
tion in  the  world  of  art  has  increased  beyond  the 
hope  and  anticipation  of  his  most  confirmed  ad- 
mirers. At  the  retrospective  exhibition  of  modern 
Belgian  art  held  in  Brussels  in  1905  he  was  accorded 
an  unprecedented  amount  of  space,  and  has  every- 
where received  similar  consideration.  All  such 
demonstrations  were  however  eclipsed  by  the  mag- 
nificent collective  display  of  his  work  at  Louvain 
during  the  spring  and  summer  of  1909.  Organized 
in  conjunction  with  the  anniversary  celebration  of 
the  Catholic  University,  and  held  under  the  highest 
civil,  academic,  and  ecclesiastical  patronage,  the 
occasion  was  notable  from  every  point  of  view. 
Over  seven  hundred  examples  of  sculpture  and 
graphic  production  were  on  exhibition,  and  it  was 
the  success  of  this  undertaking  which  in  large 
measure  paved  the  way  for  the  appearance  of 
Meunier  in  our  midst. 

As  he  strolled  through  the  bright  squares  of 


26 


Brussels  or  along  the  dim  by-streets  of  Louvain 
there  always  seemed  to  be  something  evangelical 
about  Constantin  Meunier.  His  was  a  steadfast, 
forthright  nature  and  his  leading  characteristic  was 
that  of  benignity.  He  was  tall,  with  massive, 
osseous  head,  pale  northern  eyes,  and  brow  fur- 
rowed by  ceaseless  effort  and  anxiety.  His  form 
was  bent  as  by  some  unseen  weight,  and  a  full, 
apostolic  beard  covered  chin  and  chest.  Pensive, 
and  with  an  air  of  mystic  absorption,  he  might  have 
stepped  out  of  one  of  those  early  Gothic  reliefs  or 
tapestries  with  which  his  work  has  such  marked 
affinity.  He  was  modest  to  a  degree  rare  in  these, 
or  any  days.  When  recognition  finally  came  and 
he  was  hailed  as  the  creator  of  a  new  epoch  in  art, 
as  the  founder  of  the  "esthetics  of  work,"  he  merely 
looked  puzzled  and  exclaimed,  ''Why,  what  can 
they  all  see  in  my  poor  stuff  "  He  did  not  indeed 
fully  realize  the  significance  of  his  achievement, 
his  best  efforts  having  been  produced  under  the 
stress  of  a  powerful  subconscious  impulse. 

A  wide  reader,  especially  of  the  Scriptures,  the 
Greek  and  Roman  classics,  and  certain  modern 
naturalistic  authors,  such  as  Flaubert,  Zola,  and 
the  de  Goncourts,  he  was  also  notably  fond  of 
music.  Gliick,  Beethoven,  and  Wagner  were  his 
favourite  composers,  and  when  younger  he  used 
often  to  attend  concerts  in  his  native  city,  though 
latterly,  especially  after  a  fatiguing  day's  toil,  pre- 


27 


ferred  to  sit  quietly  within  the  ever-narrowing 
family  circle.  Throughout  his  life  and  the  work  of 
his  hands  flowed  a  deep  and  tremulous  sympathy. 
He  always  felt  the  sense  of  tears  in  human  things. 
Like  his  art,  the  man  himself  was  profoundly  fra- 
ternal of  character  and  aspect.  He  seemed  trans- 
figured by  a  divine  pity — that  pity  which  came  into 
the  world  long  since  and  made  the  world  anew. 


28 


All  the  anguish  which  Agesander 
pictures  in  the  Laoco'dn,  all  the  abne- 
gation that  Michelangelo  suggests  in 
the  fettered  and  submissive  figure  of 
the  Slave,  Constantin  Meunier  ex- 
presses in  latter-day  bronze  or  plas- 
ter. And  for  the  stressful  agony  of 
the  Laocoon  ayid  the  Slave — for  the 
terror  of  this  serpent-entwined  body 
and  the  poignancy  of  this  bent  and 
suppliant  form — modern  sculpture 
here  substitutes  a  fortitude  more 
heroic  and  profound,  a  resignation 
nobler  and  more  tragic. 

Verhaeren. 


29 


MINER  WITH  AX 
Catalogue  No.  24 


30 


CRITICAL 


II  faut  faire  beau,  il  faut  faire  grand, 

TO  HAVE  led  art  from  temple  and  palace  to 
cottage  door  and  into  field  and  factory,  to  have 
delivered  her  from  the  hands  of  priest,  king,  or 
noble  patron  and  presented  her  unfettered  to  the 
people,  was  the  particular  triumph  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Once  ritualistic  and  aristocratic, 
art  is  to-day  also  rationalistic  and  democratic. 
Although  it  took  the  peasants  of  France  but  a 
brief,  mad  moment  to  storm  the  Bastille  and  sack 
the  Tuileries  the  event  was  long  preparing. 
Though  in  similar  fashion  it  has  only  been  within 
the  present  generation  that  art  has  attained  univer- 
sal suffrage,  it  was  as  far  back  as  the  early  'twenties 
that  the  movement  had  its  inception.  Curiously 
enough,  a  flamboyant  romanticist,  Gericault,  was 
among  the  first  to  recognize  the  esthetic  possibili- 
ties of  labour.  It  was  not  Millet,  as  many  fancy, 
but  such  masters  as  Gericault,  Cals,  and  Jeanron 
who  were  the  true  heralds  of  the  proletariat  in  art, 
who  were  the  original  champions  of  the  man  in 
sabots  and  smock.  For  a  good  quarter  century  he 
moved  clumsily,  even  timidly,  in  this  new  realm  of 
form  and  colour,  but  with  the  redoubtable  Courbet 
he  entered  aggressively  into  his  own.     While  Ger- 


31 


cault's  Limekiln  and  the  humble  rustics  and  vaga- 
bonds of  Cals  were  mainly  experimental,  it  was 
with  something  akin  to  savage  assurance  that  the 
Stonebreakers  of  Gustave  Courbet  crushed  be- 
neath their  swinging  blows  the  foundations  of  an 
effete  and  exclusive  temple  of  beauty. 

By  the  'fifties  work  had  become  a  theme  in  itself. 
Across  the  Channel,  Ford  Madox  Brown  was 
inspired  to  paint  its  apotheosis,  and  some  years 
later  the  perceptive  Adolf  von  Menzel,  to  whom  no 
phase  of  human  activity  was  foreign,  gave  the 
world  a  third  great  picture  of  labour  with  his  Roll- 
ing Mill.  Thus  far  however  work  had  been 
treated  in  a  broad,  symbolic  vein.  Despite  their 
manifest  sincerity,  Courbet's  stonebreakers, 
Millet's  sober  toilers  on  the  plain  of  Fontainebleau, 
and  Menzel's  grimy  ironmoulders  of  Konigshutte 
were  not  sharply  individualized.  There  was  some- 
thing abstract  and  theoretical  about  them.  The 
idea  still  loomed  larger  than  the  fact  behind  it. 
With  the  exception  of  Millet,  work  with  these 
painters  was  an  episode  rather  than  an  experience, 
a  chance  theme  rather  than  a  permanent  text.  It 
was  not  in  France,  England,  or  Germany,  but  in  a 
smaller,  more  compact  and  densely  populated  com- 
munity that  labour  and  the  labouring  classes  first 
assumed  their  rightful  place  in  the  domain  of 
esthetics.  It  was  not  in  short  until  the  rise  of 
latter-day  industrialism,  not  until  they  had  gained 


32 


THE  DOCKHAND 
Catalogue  No.  73 


unity  and  organization  that  these  serfs  of  civiHza- 
tion  captured  the  citadel  of  art. 

There  is  singular  propriety  in  the  fact  that 
Flanders  and  the  Low  Countries,  which  were  the 
earliest  to  free  themselves  from  the  tyranny  of 
Church  and  Court,  should  also  have  proved  the 
scene  of  this  new  conquest  for  the  extension  of  the 
artistic  franchise.  Certain  timid  spirits  have  been 
fond  of  contending  that  modern  industrial  condi- 
tions spell  the  death  of  esthetic  expression.  The 
steam  engine,  the  factory  and  the  forge,  the  coal-pit 
and  the  quarry,  are  popularly  supposed  to  crush 
beauty,  to  obliterate  art.  In  point  of  fact,  the 
precise  contrary  is  the  case.  No  country  is  more 
industrial  than  Belgium.  Within  a  few  decades 
the  meadows  of  Hainaut,  the  leafy  copses  of  Liege, 
and  the  valleys  of  the  Meuse  and  the  Sambre  have 
been  seamed  and  blistered  by  myriads  of  collieries 
and  iron  foundries.  The  whole  face  of  the  land 
has  been  seared  and  the  sky  blackened  by  fumes 
from  countless  belching  stacks  and  blast  furnaces. 
Man,  in  place  of  remaining  bucolic  and  pastoral, 
has  become  a  dusky,  subterranean  creature.  His 
back  is  bowed  and  the  song  upon  his  lips  has  turned 
to  a  bitter  cry  for  easier  hours  and  better  pay. 

Everything  it  would  seem  has  conspired  to 
annihilate  art  and  the  sense  of  beauty,  yet  both 
have  survived  and  have  even  taken  on  new  signifi- 
cance.   The  novels  of  Camille  Lemonnier,  the  verse 


34 


THE  HAMMERMAN 
Catalogue  No.  61 


of  Emile  Verhaeren,  and  the  gentle  mysticism  of 
Maurice  Maeterlinck  have  all  flowered  upon  this 
sombre  battlefield  of  industry.  In  painting,  Fred- 
eric and  Laermans  reveal  a  personal  and  suggestive 
mastery,  while  the  plastic  evocations  of  George 
Minne  display  a  dolorous  and  penetrant  appeal. 
It  is  not  despite,  but  rather  because  of  existent 
conditions  that  such  results  have  been  achieved. 
The  art  of  Belgium  is  predominantly  serious.  It 
has  never  been  a  mere  matter  of  petty  diversion. 
Nowhere  is  the  social  function  of  art  more  clearly 
defined  and  nowhere  is  its  vindication  more  con- 
vincing. That  fusion  of  mysticism  and  material- 
ism which  is  the  leading  characteristic  of  this 
sturdy,  resolute  folk  early  taught  them  to  place  the 
work  of  hand  and  brain  frankly  in  the  service  of 
the  soul. 

Although  sculpture  failed  signally  to  respond  to 
the  new  spirit,  it  was  a  vital  moment  for  Belgian 
painting  when  the  pensive,  ardent  Constantin 
Meunier  turned  from  clay  to  crayon  and  oils.  The 
volcanic  Courbet  had  just  sounded  the  note  of 
realism  by  sending  certain  of  his  pictures  to  the 
Brussels  exhibition.  The  dawn  of  democracy  so 
luridly  foreshadowed  by  Wiertz  in  his  huge,  dis- 
traught concoctions  had  broken  in  sadder,  soberer 
tints  upon  the  poignant  canvases  of  Charles  De 
Groux.  Everywhere  was  felt  the  thrill  of  new 
influences,  the  impact  of  fresh  forces.     Nor  did  it 


36 


MINER  WITH  LANTERN 
Catalogue  No.  54 


take^long  for  something  definite  to  issue  from  this 
fruitful  unrest,  there  shortly  gathering  about  the 
pathetic,  sedentary  De  Groux  a  group  of  men 
whose  creed  was  actuahty,  whose  aim  was  a  verity 
capable  of  enlisting  the  deepest  human  sympathies 
and  aspirations. 

The  formation  of  the  Ecole  d'art  libre,  or  Acade- 
mic libre,  currently  known  as  the  Atelier  Saint-Luc, 
was  the  real  starting  point  of  modern  Belgian  art. 
In  addition  to  Meunier  himself  the  membership 
included  De  Groux,  Felicien  Rops,  and  Louis  Dubois. 
Together  with  Alfred  Stevens  they  comprised  the 
gallant  vanguard  who  finally  rescued  Flemish  paint- 
ing from  the  shackles  of  a  frigid  classicism  and  the 
smouldering  fires  of  romanticism  and  brought  her 
face  to  face  with  the  troubled  yet  inspiring  appeal 
of  every-day  existence.  De  Groux  sought  his  sub- 
jects among  the  pallid  and  famished  victims  of 
civic  misery  and  oppression.  With  the  scrupulous 
fidelity  of  a  true  Low  Country  Little  Master,  and 
the  delicate  sensibility  of  later  times,  Stevens 
depicted  the  discreet  intimacies  of  the  upper  class 
world.  Rops  followed  the  scarlet  trail  of  the  senses 
along  devious  pathways,  while  on  the  other  hand 
the  silent  heroism  of  the  workman  and  the  simple 
majesty  of  labour  found  their  fitting  exponent  in 
Constantin  Meunier. 

AW  pupils  of  the  excellent  Navez,  the  little  band 
used  to  meet  daily  at  a  shabby  studio  situated  over 


38 


THE  FOUNDRYMAN 

Catalogue  No,  62 


39 


a  beer  cellar  in  the  rue  aux  Laines,  the  ascent  to 
which  was  made  by  a  rude  ladder  placed  between 
casks  of  faro.  They  worked  manfully  along  for  a 
time,  but  were  soon  fated  to  be  scattered.  Stevens 
and  Rops  drifted  to  Paris,  rapidly  winning  fame 
and  success.  De  Groux  and  Meunier  remained  at 
home  to  face  poverty  and  neglect  and  await  in 
patient  humility  a  long-deferred  recognition.  And 
yet  the  force  of  their  example  and  united  efforts 
never  quite  vanished,  such  organizations  as  the 
Societe  libre  des  Beaux- Arts,  "Le  XX,"  and  the 
Libre  esthetique  all  clearly  deriving  from  this  epoch 
of  struggle  and  ferment.  It  was  however  not  in 
painting,  or  in  letters,  that  the  most  potent  expres- 
sion of  the  period  was  attained.  In  a  certain  sense 
the  least  promising  of  all,  constantly  beset  by 
doubt,  and  hampered  by  persistent  lack  of  physical 
strength,  it  was  nevertheless  Constantin  Meunier 
who  lived  longest  and  who  achieved  more  than  any 
of  his  colleagues.  It  was  in  his  austere  yet  benign, 
his  vigorous  though  resigned  figures  in  bronze  and 
plaster  that  was  voiced  the  supreme  accent  of  the 
movement. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  consider  in  detail 
Meunier's  work  as  a  painter.  In  its  essential  char- 
acteristics it  reflects  the  leading  tendencies  of  his 
generation.  It  stands  midway  between  the  realism 
of  yesterday  and  the  impressionism  of  to-day.  In 
its  early  phases  by  no  means  free  from  certain  con- 


40 


AT  THE  WATERING  PLACE 
Catalogue  No.  48 


THE  QUARRYMAN 
Catalogue  No.  67 


ventional  academic  influences,  it  rises  in  other 
instances  to  the  plane  of  a  genuinely  personal 
expression.  Looked  at  in  proper  perspective,  it 
assumes  its  rightful  position  as  a  faithful  and  pains- 
taking preparation  for  his  work  in  the  round. 
These  fervid  religious  subjects,  these  countless 
documents  jotted  down  in  the  Black  Country,  and 
these  dark-sweeping  landscapes  with  horizons  cut 
by  stark  chimneys  and  gaunt  scaffolding,  form  but 
the  natural  background  against  which  he  placed 
man — the  workman — in  all  his  eloquent  plastic 
energy. 

The  artistic  production  of  Constantin  Meunier  is 
marked  throughout  by  a  singular  unity  of  thought 
and  purpose.  Glance  over  the  three  decades  dur- 
ing which  he  devoted  himself  to  painting  and  you 
will  discover  the  same  motives  you  subsequently 
observe  in  the  statues  and  reliefs.  His  first  pic- 
ture of  importance,  a  Ward  in  the  Hospital  of 
Saint-Roch,  reveals  his  deep  sense  of  social  pity. 
The  Stoning  of  Saint  Stephen  typifies  the  passive 
suffering  of  the  ages,  and  The  Peasants'  War  proves 
his  ability  to  give  a  specific  scene  something  more 
than  ordinary  significance.  Each  of  these  themes 
is  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  graphic  naturalism. 
While  sufficiently  individual  in  treatment,  they 
have  much  in  common  with  the  powerful,  sombre 
vision  of  the  great  Spaniards,  Ribera  and  Zurbaran, 
whose  message  descended  to  the  Frenchman,  Ribot. 


43 


The  drawing  is  vigorous  and  decisive,  the  colouring 
dark  and  sumptuous,  and  you  will  note  in  the  mod- 
elling of  the  figures  and  the  folds  of  the  draperies 
a  marked  feeling  for  form  and  rhythm. 

When  in  after  years  Meunier  relinquished  paint- 
ing for  sculpture,  he  was  in  no  sense  a  different  man. 
He  responded  to  the  same  influences  as  before. 
The  subject-matter  was  new,  yet  his  attitude 
toward  it  remained  identical.  He  had  simply 
forsaken  the  heroes  and  martyrs  of  faith  for  those 
humbler  though  not  less  touching  victims  of  eco- 
nomic pressure  and  distress.  He  had  merely 
exchanged  cathedral  and  cloister  for  factory  and 
and  furnace.  His  monks  became  miners,  his  sisters 
of  charity,  colliery  girls.  Out  of  modern  industrial- 
ism he  forged  his  own  religion,  and  through 
unflinching  faith  and  energy  succeeded  in  bestow- 
ing upon  labour  the  precious  baptism  of  art.  One 
symbol  alone  he  guarded  intact,  and  that  was  the 
figure  of  Christ,  which  he  used  many  times,  a 
version  of  which,  fashioned  by  his  own  hands, 
watches  beside  his  grave  in  the  cemetery  of  Ixelles. 

If  the  emotional  quality  of  the  early  canvases 
survived  in  much  of  the  production  of  after  days, 
the  actual  details  and  composition  of  certain  later 
subjects  clearly  served  him  in  various  statues  and 
groups.  Thus  The  Broken  Crucible  became  with 
the  customary  process  of  transmutation  the  relief 
entitled  Industry  for  the  Monument  to  Labour. 


44 


THE  MOWER 
Catalogue  No.  79 


45 


The  canvas  known  as  The  Emigrants  was  in  simi- 
lar fashion  made  to  do  duty  for  The  Port,  and  the 
noble  form  of  The  Sower  crowning  the  monument 
was  elaborated  from  a  sketch  from  nature  made 
some  dozen  years  previously.  You  will  indeed  find 
the  entire  scheme  for  this  great  work  foreshadowed 
in  the  large  cartoon  originally  intended  to  decorate 
the  mantelpiece  of  a  certain  Black  Country  railway 
station.  Every  particle  of  this  precious  material 
seemed  in  due  course  to  fit  into  its  appointed  place, 
the  numerous  oils,  the  various  crayons,  pastels,  and 
water-colours  merely  proving  the  preliminary  sug- 
gestions for  work  of  a  more  substantial  and  endur- 
ing character. 

You  will  thus  readily  infer  that  no  abrupt  and 
fanciful  transitions  punctuated  the  artistic  progress 
of  Constantin  Meunier.  He  developed  naturally 
and  normally,  passing  with  a  certain  inner  logic 
from  one  phase  to  another.  His  apprenticeship 
was  long,  and  he  matured  but  slowly,  in  which  he 
resembles  the  master  craftsmen  of  other,  sturdier 
times.  On  surveying  his  life  work  you  instinctively 
recall  such  old-world  figures  as  Adam  Krafft  and 
Peter  Vischer.  There  was  to  his  career  and  achieve- 
ment a  singular  intensity  of  effort  and  a  sustained 
continuity  of  endeavour.  In  order  to  find  for  it  an 
adequate  parallel  it  is  almost  necessary  to  go  back 
to  the  still  earlier  dawn  of  the  Gothic  age  in  the 
darkness  of  German  forest  or  amid  the  rose-tinted 
mists  of  the  lie  de  France. 


46 


GRIEF 

Catalogue  No.  13 


47 


Sculpture,  properly  considered,  is  an  absolute 
art,  in  direct  contrast  to  painting,  the  effects  of 
which  are  attained  through  a  process  of  trans- 
position. Ever  since  it  first  succeeded  in  detaching 
itself  from  the  low  relief  of  the  potter's  vase  and  the 
primitive  tracery  of  wall  surface,  sculpture  has 
striven  to  achieve  an  ampler  measure  of  plastic 
freedom.  Century  after  century  it  has  fought  its 
way  toward  reality,  toward  nature,  toward  life. 
With  the  Egyptians  it  remained  to  the  end  hieratic 
and  immobile,  indissolubly  linked  to  those  mysteri- 
ous doubles  of  which  it  was  but  the  outward  and 
visible  incarnation.  With  the  Greeks  it  took  on 
an  elasticity  hitherto  undreamed,  and  from  the 
Christians  was  destined  to  learn  the  lesson  of  suffer- 
ing and  humility.  Essentially  concrete  in  its  aim 
and  appeal,  it  early  chose  man  as  its  principal 
theme,  and  it  is  into  the  mould  of  man,  and  of 
woman,  that  the  sculptor  of  every  age  and  epoch 
has  poured  his  dream  of  eternal  power  and  imper- 
ishable beauty. 

In  the  sane  and  buoyant  days  of  Attic  supremacy 
the  wrestler  and  the  athlete  were  the  typical  expo- 
nents of  plastic  movement.  Man  was  no  longer  a 
rigid  prisoner  of  ritualistic  form  but  a  free  being, 
rejoicing  in  his  prowess  and  acclaimed  in  the  sta- 
dium. The  coming  of  Christianity  taught  him 
penitence  and  renunciation,  taught  him  not  to 
deify  but  to  mortify  the  body.    With  Michelangelo 


49 


he  became  a  stormy  colossus,  full  of  grandiose 
inquietude,  and  with  Pajou  and  Clodion  we  find 
him  a  white  and  wanton  boy.  In  later  times  sculp- 
ture has  shown  him  lamenting  his  lost  serenity  and 
chafing  against  a  modernity  which  he  could  not 
summon  the  courage  to  confront. 

There  are  two  artists  of  the  current  generation 
who  have,  with  a  conspicuous  measure  of  success, 
adapted  sculpture  to  present-day  conditions,  and, 
needless  to  add,  their  names  are  Auguste  Rodin  and 
Constantin  Meunier.  It  is  unnecessary  here  to 
discuss  the  supreme  emotionalist  in  marble  who 
has  harked  back  to  a  vanished  antiquity  in  order 
to  voice  the  significance  of  physical  passion,  who 
has,  as  no  one  before  or  since,  immortalized  the 
desire  of  the  ages.  Rodin  and  Meunier  were  both 
living  and  working  in  Brussels  at  the  same  time,  the 
one  on  his  caryatides  for  the  Bourse,  the  other  in 
patient  obscurity  with  few  if  any  specific  commis- 
sions. They  did  not  meet  during  this  period  of 
probation,  and  little  did  either  dream  that,  be- 
tween them,  they  were  destined  to  divide  the 
honours  of  contemporary  sculpture. 

Like  the  art  of  the  Greeks  which  he  so  fervently 
admired,  the  work  of  Constantin  Meunier  is 
soundly  objective  in  character.  Each  of  these 
figures  has  its  appointed  task  to  perform  and  each 
fulfills  his  function  with  resolute  sincerity.  An 
innate  realist,  Meunier  fearlessly  stripped  his  sub- 


50 


MINER 

Catalogue  No.  51 


51 


jects  of  every  vestige  of  extraneous  appeal.  He 
knew  them  and  knew  and  felt  their  condition  too 
deeply  to  indulge  in  the  slightest  esthetic  subter- 
fuge. They  were  all  taken  directly  from  life,  and 
while  the  majority  were  men,  he  now  and  then 
modelled  a  female  form  such  as  the  buoyant  Mine 
Girl,  or  the  mother  crushed  beneath  a  weight  of 
agonizing  fatality  in  that  tragic  episode  entitled 
Fire-damp.  Animals,  too,  he  made  share  their 
portion  of  nature's  inflexible  destiny.  As  with 
Zola  in  Germinal  he  felt  drawn  toward  those  sodden 
brutes  condemned  to  plod  dumbly  in  suffocating 
darkness,  and  with  the  Old  Mine  Horse  gave  but 
another  version  of  ''Bataille"  in  all  his  spent  and 
shapeless  decrepitude. 

And  yet,  as  already  noted,  his  accurate  and  sym- 
pathetic observation  was  by  no  means  confined  to 
the  Black  Country.  Little  by  little  he  widened  his 
circle  of  activity  by  adding  The  Ploughman,  and 
The  Sower  scattering  his  seed  with  impressive 
sweep  of  arm ;  The  Reaper,  and  The  Mower  glanc- 
ing at  the  noonday  sun.  The  Quarryman,  too,  he 
transferred  to  this  cycle  of  human  effort,  nor  did 
he  neglect  The  Brickmaker  or  The  Dockhand.  He 
thus  spontaneously  enlarged  his  panorama,  omit- 
ting that  which  was  incidental,  and  bringing  into 
closer  accord  that  which  seemed  possessed  of  last- 
ing importance.  And  presently  these  varied  ele- 
ments began  to  reveal  a  certain  community  of  feel- 


53 


ing  as  though  obeying  a  single,  unifying  impulse. 
In  its  higher  manifestations  the  art  of  Meunier 
gradually  became  a  fusion  of  reality  and  creative 
imagination.  Though  specific  in  aspect  and  atti- 
tude these  labourers  and  artisans  display  an  affinity 
with  that  which  is  eternally  sculpturesque.  They 
tap  at  a  vein  or  pause  before  a  pot  of  molten  metal, 
yet  they  embody  kinetic  and  dynamic  laws  that  are 
universal. 

Not  the  least  triumph  of  Meunier's  art,  like  that 
of  Rodin,  consists  in  having  bridged  over  the  past, 
in  having  adapted  sovereign,  immutable  truths  to 
actual  feelings  and  conditions.  In  this  work 
which  at  first  seems  devoid  of  esthetic  charm,  he 
has  not  ignored  but  rather  preserved  the  lasting 
canons  of  plastic  beauty.  Gods  and  gladiators 
have  merely  been  put  into  harness.  Infolding 
draperies,  soft  as  sea-foam  from  the  Aegean,  have 
been  exchanged  for  rough  blouse  and  leather  apron. 
Mercury  has  slipped  his  winged  heels  into  sabots; 
the  flexible  Discobolus  has  learned  to  swing  a 
sledge.  It  is  in  brief  not  Apollo  or  Venus,  but 
Vulcan  whom  this  new  race  worships.  That  which 
these  modern  Atlantes  bear  upon  their  shoulders  is 
not  a  fabulous  universe;  it  is  the  sober  structure  of 
latter-day  social  and  industrial  democracy. 

Being  in  a  broad  sense  but  a  continuation  of 
that  which  has  gone  before,  there  are  numerous 
more  or  less  explicit  parallelisms  between  this  art 


54 


OLD  MINER 
Catalogue  No.  23 


and  the  production  of  the  past.  That  primal 
drama  of  continuous  action,  the  Pergamum  frieze, 
is  the  distinct  prototype  of  Meunier's  reHefs.  Each 
depicts  struggle,  the  former  simply  epitomizing  an 
earlier  phase  of  strife.  In  similar  fashion  weeping 
Niobe  finds  her  counterpart  in  the  grief-stricken 
mother  of  Fire-damp,  and  the  Old  Mine  Horse  is 
but  an  abused  and  forlorn  Pegasus.  Coming  down 
to  the  Renaissance,  the  rider  in  At  the  Watering 
Place  is  none  other  than  a  Colleoni  of  the  people. 
Over  all  Meunier's  groups,  however  tense  and  con- 
centrated, lingers  that  static  repose  which  is  the 
priceless  heritage  of  Hellas.  And  still  this  art  is 
not  Classic,  or  Christian,  or  Modern;  it  is  all  three. 
It  illustrates  the  gradual  and  consistent  evolution 
of  the  plastic  principle. 

There  is  of  course  an  obvious  affinity  between 
Meunier's  miners  of  the  Borinage  and  Millet's 
peasants  in  the  brown  fields  about  Barbizon. 
Though  representing  different  strata,  they  share 
a  similar  community  of  inspiration.  Millet's  types 
are  nevertheless  more  pathetic  and  self -pitying; 
Meunier's  more  reticent  and  self-reliant.  And 
yet  while  every  statue,  every  bit  of  bronze  or 
plaster  that  left  his  hand  bears  in  some  measure 
its  portion  of  weariness  and  of  pathos,  this  art 
is  not  in  essence  an  appeal  or  a  protest.  It  is  a 
courageous  acceptance  of  existing  conditions. 
These  miners  are  not  suppliants,  they  are  con- 


57 


querors.  A  species  of  latent  idealism  animates 
their  every  movement.  They  rejoice  in  labour 
well  performed.  As  they  themselves  say,  "Work 
and  the  Walloon  are  friends,"  and  it  is  this  note 
that  Meunier  strove  to  sound.  His  art  is  in  a  sense 
the  deification  of  work.  Still,  though  he  modified, 
he  did  not  falsify  life.  He  simply  gave  these  stal- 
wart man-gods  a  touch  more  of  heroism,  a  shade 
more  of  that  virile,  expressive  splendour  with  which 
they  are  clothed.  An  august  majesty  accompanies 
each  gesture.  Work  with  them  has  become  a  sol- 
emn, physical  ritual.  The  Sower  is  Biblical,  The 
Abatteur  sacrificial,  and  that  dark  line  of  rhythmi- 
cally swinging  figures  in  Returning  from  the  Mine 
suggests  a  great  recessional  of  labour.  It  is  not 
the  bare  performance  of  a  given  task  which  this  art 
celebrates.  It  is  the  eternal  continuity  of  corpo- 
rate endeavour.  These  men  are  not  building  for 
to-day  alone.  With  each  stroke  they  are  strength- 
ening the  solidarity  of  the  human  race. 

Although  the  spirit  of  his  work  is  inherently 
social  and  fraternal,  Constantin  Meunier  never 
posed  as  a  man  with  a  mission.  He  was  content 
to  portray  life  in  the  concrete,  leaving  press  and 
public  draw  whatever  conclusions  they  saw  fit. 
Shorn  of  trivial  accident  and  exalted  to  a  plane  of 
vigorous  simplicity,  these  figures  are  untrammelled 
by  theory  or  thesis.  Meunier  never  dealt  directly 
in  generalities.    He  approached  the  general  only 


59 


through  the  particular.  You  will  not  discover  in 
this  work  the  slightest  tendency  to  identify  man 
with  those  elements  with  which  he  is  associated. 
That  which  the  artist  gives  us  is  a  synthesis,  not  a 
symbol.  He  frankly  disavowed  all  predilection,  all 
suspicion  of  parti  pris.  He  claimed  but  one  privi- 
lege, and  that  was  the  placing  on  record  of  those 
few  forms  and  movements  which  inspired  within 
him  the  eternal  productive  impulse. 

The  specific  achievement  of  Constantin  Meunier 
consists  in  having  evolved  a  distinctive  type,  in 
having  taken  that  which  was  local  and  made  of  it 
something  that  is  universal.  The  entrance  of  these 
stately  sons  of  toil  into  gallery  and  museum  marks 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  sculpture.  The  children 
of  a  new  era — the  era  of  Collectivism — they  clearly 
show  the  continuation  of  Classic  and  Christian 
traditions.  The  joyousness  of  the  Pagan  world  and 
that  sorrow  which  was  the  legacy  of  the  Church 
have  been  supplemented  by  a  social  sympathy  and 
a  synchronous  effort  of  which  these  statues  are  the 
eloquent  witness.  You  find  in  them  all  the  human- 
itarianism,  together  with  that  fierce  energy  and 
material  pride  which  inevitably  belong  to  a  period 
of  industrial  ascendancy.  And  yet  this  art  is  new 
only  in  its  externals,  for  its  spirit  is  as  old  as  the 
world  itself.  It  is  essentially  rhythmic  in  its 
utterance.  It  chants  that  cosmic  hymn  of  human 
endeavour  and  human  fatality  which  has  resounded 


61 


through  the  ages,  and  to  which  each  age  merely 
adds  its  fitting  character  and  cadence. 

There  can  be  no  question  concerning  the  relative 
status  of  Constantin  Meunier.  Taken  in  its 
lentirety  his  production  will  readily  stand  compari- 
son with  that  of  the  very  foremost  of  his  contempo- 
raries. Though  in  a  measure  restricted  in  scope,  it 
[ranks  in  general  significance  beside  the  pellucid  and 
spacious  vision  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  the  pene- 
trant humanity  of  Eugene  Carriere,  and  the  sen- 
suous unrest  of  Auguste  Rodin.  The  poet  of 
j  death,  Leonardo  Bistolfi,  too,  he  suggests,  while  in 
i'his  single-hearted  devotion  to  a  definite  locality  he 
I  may  well  be  likened  to  such  masters  as  Segantini 
and  Cottet.  At  once  the  product  of  past  and  of 
present,  his  artistic  heritage  may  be  traced  through 
I  the  sober  majesty  of  Millet  and  the  graphic  vehe- 
mence of  Honore  Daumier  back  to  the  fountain- 
heads  of  medieval  and  antique  sculpture.  Bearing 
with  manful  mien  their  burden  of  earthly  toil  and 
tribulation,  these  sombre  figures  take  up  their  po- 
sition in  the  plastic  procession  of  all  time.  And  just 
as  assuredly  does  their  earnest-souled  creator  find 
his  resting  place  in  the  pantheon  of  modern  art. 
He  possesses,  indeed,  dual  claim  to  his  hard-won 
haven.  His  triumph  was  not  alone  esthetic,  but 
spiritual.  He  wrought  in  beauty  and  nobility, 
and  his  was  also  a  conquest  of  human  hearts. 


63 


CATALOGUE 


SCULPTURE 
PLASTERS 

1  Constaiitin  Meunier  (By  Himself) 

Monumental  bust,  1903-04.  Executed  for  the  facade 
of  the  Ny  Carlsberg  Glyptotek,  Copenhagen. 

2  Industry 

Monumental  relief,  one-half  original  size.  The  first 
of  four  friezes  designed  for  the  Monument  to  Labour. 
The  scene  takes  place  in  a  glass  factory,  and  was 
treated  by  the  artist  in  crayon  and  in  oil  as  early 
as  1879. 

3  The  Harvest 

Monumental  relief,  one-half  original  size.  The 
second  of  four  friezes  designed  for  the  Monument  to 
Labour.  First  version  completed  in  1898,  and  ex- 
hibited in  Paris,  1900. 

4  The  Port 

Monumental  relief,  one-half  original  size.  The  third 
of  four  friezes  designed  for  the  Monument  to  Labour. 
First  version  completed  in  1901.  Recalls  the  paint- 
ing bearing  the  same  title  dated  1886,  as  well  as  a 
still  earlier  canvas  known  as  The  Emigrants. 


65 


5  The  Mine 

Monumental  relief,  one-half  original  size.  The 
fourth  and  last  of  the  friezes  designed  for  the  Monu- 
ment to  Labour.  Completed  in  1905,  a  few  weeks 
before  the  artist's  death. 

6  The  Hammerman 

Also  known  as  the  Man  with  the  Pincers.  Monu- 
mental statue,  1884.  The  artist's  first  important 
work  in  sculpture.  Exhibited  in  Paris,  1886,  where 
it  was  awarded  an  Honourable  Mention.  Compare 
Nos.  61  and  87. 

7  The  Sower 

Monumental  statue,  1896.  An  earlier  version  (1893) 
is  in  the  Botanical  Garden,  Brussels,  and  a  later 
(1904-05),  crowns  the  pinnacle  of  the  Monument  to 
Labour. 

8  The  Dockhand 

Monumental  statue,  1893.  A  typical  lighterman  of 
the  Antwerp  waterfront.  There  are  several  ver- 
sions of  this  subject,  one  of  the  best-known  being 
that  in  the  Luxembourg,  Paris. 

9  June,  Mower  Resting 

Monumental  statue,  1890.  The  same  figure  may  be 
seen  in  the  relief  of  The  Harvest  (No.  3).  Compare 
also  No.  77. 

10  Charles  Cottet 

Bust,  1903.  Shows  the  characteristic  physiognomy 
of  the  distinguished  painter  of  Brittany  coast  scenes. 


66 


BRONZES 


11  The  Prodigal  Son 

Group,  1895.  Executed  at  Louvain  shortly  follow- 
ing the  death  at  sea  of  the  artist's  youngest  son, 
George. 

12  Maternity 

Group,  1902.  The  same,  barring  a  few  modifica- 
tions, as  the  Maternity  of  the  Monument  to  Labour. 
Earlier  versions,  1893  and  1895. 

13  Grief 

Executed  at  Louvain,  1888.  Study  for  the  woman 
in  Fire-damp  (No.  46). 

14  Antwerp  Dockhand 

Reduction  of  No.  8. 

15  Industry 

Date,  1900.    Fragment  of  central  portion  of  No.  2. 

16  Head  of  Christ 

Bust,  1899. 

17  The  Crucified  One 

Bust,  1887.  Not  the  Christ,  but  a  conception  partly 
secular,  partly  religious. 

18  Antwerp 

Bust,  1900,  symbolizing  the  city  of  Antwerp.  Com- 
pare Nos.  8  and  14. 


G7 


19  June 

Bust,  1900.    Compare  No.  9. 

20  A  Woman  of  the  People 

Bust,  1893. 

21  A  Daughter  of  the  People 

Bust,  1887.    Suggests  the  woman  in  Maternity 
(No.  12). 

22  Head  of  Mine  Girl 

Date,  1896.  One  of  those  hiercheuses  who  are  so 
fast  disappearing  from  the  mines. 

23  Old  Miner 

Bust,  1897.  The  model  was  an  old  mine  worker  of 
Couillet. 

24  Miner  with  Ax 

Date,  1900.  Wears  the  traditional  leather  cap  and 
carries  his  ax  proudly  over  the  shoulder. 

25  Bust  of  Puddler 

Date,  1895.  Depicted  in  the  full  intensity  of  action 
before  the  furnace. 

26  Youth 

Life-sized  bust,  1890.   Model  was  the  sculptor  Craco. 

27  Ecce  Homo 

Statuette,  1890. 

68 


28  Christ  at  the  Tomb 

Group  in  ivory  and  bronze,  1900.  Inspired  by  Hol- 
bein's Christ  at  Basel. 

29  The  Prodigal  Son 

Statuette,  1895.  Compare  No.  11,  of  which  this  is 
first  version. 

30  Head  of  Child 

The  artist's  granddaughter,  aged  seven  months,  1898. 

31  Germaine 

Bust,  1900.  The  artist's  granddaughter,  aged  three 
years. 

32  Industry 

Relief,  1890.  One-quarter  the  size  of  No.  2,  for 
which  it  was  a  preliminary  study. 

33  The  Harvest 

Relief,  1895.  One-quarter  the  size  of  No.  3,  for 
which  it  was  a  preliminary  study. 

34  The  Port 

Relief,  1895.  One-quarter  the  size  of  No.  4,  showing 
various  differences. 

35  Returning  from  the  Mine 

Relief,  formerly  intended  for  the  Monument  to 
Labour,  but  subsequently  abandoned. 

36  Toilers  of  the  Sea 

Low  relief,  1898. 

69 


37  Leaving  the  Shaft 

Relief,  1892. 

38  Puddlers  at  the  Furnace 

Low  relief,  1893. 

39  The  Brickmakers 

Plaque  in  low  relief,  1896. 

40  Tillers  of  the  Soil 

Plaque  in  high  relief,  Louvain,  1892. 

41  Sunset 

Plaque  in  low  relief,  1902.    Compare  No.  64. 

42  Puddlers  in  Profile 

Study  in  low  relief.    Compare  Nos.  2  and  15. 

43  Antwerp  Draught  Horse 

Exhibited,  1885,  at  Antwerp  Exposition. 

44  Woman  and  Child 

Group,  1897. 

45  Woman  Nursing  Child 

This  group  (1899),  was  the  inspiration  for  the  Fec- 
undity of  the  Zola  Monument. 

46  Fire-Damp 

Small  group,  executed  at  Louvain  in  1893,  differing 
from  its  predecessor  of  1888-89.  The  artist's  im- 
pressions after  witnessing  one  of  those  appalling 
catastrophes  in  the  mines  at  La  Boule,  Frameries 
lez-Mons. 


70 


47  Old  Mine  Horse 

Statuette,  1890.  The  model  was  mercifully  slain 
after  having  posed. 

48  At  the  Watering  Place 

Equestrian  group,  1890.  First  study  for  the  monu- 
mental group  of  1889,  square  Ambiorix,  Brussels. 

49  Boat  Beacher,  Katwyk 

Equestrian  statuette,  1901. 

50  Shrimp  Fisher  on  Horseback 

Statuette,  1903. 

51  Miner 

Statuette,  1900.    Known  as  the  Grand  Mineur. 

52  Miner  Working  at  Vein 

High  relief,  1892.    Compare  No.  5. 

53  Miner  with  Ax 

Statuette,  1901. 

54  Miner  with  Lantern 

Statuette,  1901. 

55  Miner  Crouching 

Statuette,  1896.  Inspiration  for  similar  subject. 
Monument  to  Labour. 

56  Mine  Girl  Calling 

Statuette,  1888.  Formerly  a  popular  type  in  the 
mines.    Known  as  houilleuses  or  hiercheuses. 


71 


57  Mine  Girl  with  Shovel 

Statuette,  1888. 

58  Puddler  Resting 

Statuette,  1889.  Reduction  of  the  statue  of  1885-86, 
which  figured  in  the  Louvain  Monument  to  Labour. 

59  Man  Drinking 

Statuette,  1890. 

60  Blacksmith  Seated 

Statuette,    1901.    Original  version,  1895. 

61  The  Hammerman 

Statuette,  1890.    Compare  Nos.  6  and  87. 

62  The  Foundryman 

Statuette,  1901.  Typical  workman  in  the  steel 
foundry. 

63  Wounded  Man 

Statuette,  1896. 

64  The  Ancestor 

Statuette,  1895.    Compare  No.  41. 

65  Glassblower 

Statuette,  1889.    Type  from  Val  Saint-Lambert. 

66  Glassworker 

Statuette,  1899. 

72 


67  The  Quarryman 

Statuette,  1900.    Type  from  the  quarries  of  Quenast. 

68  The  Stonecutter 

Statuette,  1898. 

69  The  Woodcutter 

Statuette,  1898.    Compare  No.  51. 

70  Shipwrecked 

Statuette,  1890.  Marine  group,  modelled  at  Nieu- 
port  on  the  North  Sea. 

71  Ostend  Fisherman 

Statuette,  1890. 

72  The  Porter 

Statuette,  1889.    Compare  with  figures  in  No.  4. 

73  The  Dockhand 

Statuette,  1890.    Study  for  No.  8. 

74  The  Ploughman 

Statuette,  1896.  Originally  designed  to  crown  the 
Monument  to  Labour,  but  subsequently  abandoned 
in  favour  of  The  Sower. 

75  In  the  Harvest  Field 

Date,  1902.    Suggested  by  the  types  in  No.  3. 

76  The  Harvester 

Date,  1898. 

73 


77  June,  Mower  Resting 

Statuette,  1898.    Reduced  version  of  No.  9. 

78  Sower 

Statuette,  1895.    Sketch  for  No.  7. 

79  The  Mower 

Statuette,  1892.  Based  upon  a  sketch  from  nature 
made  in  oil  in  1858.    Original  version,  1890. 

80  The  Abatteur 

Statuette,  1891.    Companion  figure  to  No.  65. 

81  The  Philosopher 

Statuette,  1899.    A  species  of  modern  Memnon. 

82  Workman  Resting 

Statuette,  1895.  Figure  for  the  Monument  to 
Labour. 

83  Man  in  Despair 

Study  of  back,  1904.    Compare  No.  63. 

84  Old  Woodcutter's  Wife 

Statuette,  1891.    Compare  No.  69. 

85  Head  of  Child 

Date,  1897.  Ghislaine,  the  artist's  grand-daughter, 
aged  ten  months. 


74 


86  Eugene  Ysaye 

Relief,  1902.  The  famous  Belgian  violinist  and 
close  friend  of  the  artist. 

87  The  Hammerman 

Compare  Nos.  6  and  61. 

PAINTINGS 

88  Miner's  Cottage,  Women  Chatting. 

89  Return  of  the  Miners 

90  Miner  of  Liege 

91  Miner  from  the  Borinage 

92  Mine  Girl  with  Shovel 

93  Dump  Cars 

94  Red  Roofs 

95  Borain  Before  His  Cottage 

96  Coal  Mine  in  Snow 

97  Boat  at  Wharf,  Rupelmonde 

98  Small  Marine 

99  Bark  in  the  Channel,  Nieuport 

75 


WATER-COLOURS 

100  Boat  Beachers 

101  Head  of  Mine  Girl 

102  Puddlers  at  the  Furnace 

103  Heads  of  Puddlers 

104  Miner  with  Pick 

PASTELS  AND  DRAWINGS 
WITH  TINT 

105  Old  Forge  at  Champeau 

106  Abandoned  Coal  Mine 

107  Furnaces 

108  Brickmakers  Drawing  Water 

109  Brickyards  at  Dawn 

110  Head  of  Christ 

111  The  Waif 

112  Mine  Girls  (Finished  Picture  at  Leipzig) 

113  Corner  of  a  Steel  Mill 

114  The  Shaft  Head 

"~  76 


115  Miner  Leaving  Shaft  Head 

116  Brickyards 

117  The  Dump 


DRAWINGS  AND  SKETCHES 

118  The  Smoke  Stack 

119  Bridge,  London,  No.  1 

120  Bridge,  London,  No.  2 

121  Bridge,  London,  No.  3 

122  Bridge,  London,  No.  4 

123  Return  of  the  Miners 

124  Miner  of  the  Val  Saint-Lambert 

125  Fire-damp 

126  Urchin 

127  Puddler  at  Work 

128  Seville  Muleteer 

129  Workman 

130  Page  from  Sketchbook 

131  Page  from  Sketchbook 

77 


132  Workman  from  Blast  Furnace 

133  Collier  Smoking  His  Pipe 

134  Dockhand 

135  Miner  Crouching 

136  Boulogne  Fisherman  (Head) 

137  Borain  with  Pick 

138  Mine  Girl 

139  Head  of  Old  Fisherman 

140  Ostend  Fisherman 

141  Youthful  Glassmaker 

142  Shrimp  Fisherman  on  Horseback 

143  Second  Study  for  Fecundity 

144  Fourth  Study  for  Fecundity 

145  *The  Dead  One  ("La  Tonia  Lighting  Up  the 

Scene  of  the  Murder") 

146  *The  Dead  One  ("And  the  Feet  Were  Always 

Visible") 

147  *The  Dead  One  ("The  Corpse  Had  Changed 

Its  Place") 

*Nos.  145,  146  and  1^7  are  drauings  for  the  first  illustrated  edition  Camille 
Lemonnier  s  hook  entitled  Le  Mort, 

78 


PDDDLERS  IN  PROFILE 

LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Constantin  Meunier,  From  a  Photograph  .  Frontispiece 
Constantin  Meunier,  Portrait  by  Verheyden.  1885  .  .  10 
Constantin  Meunier,  Portrait  by  Verheyden,  1887  .       .  15 

Constantin  Meunier  in  his  Brussels  Studio  .  18 
Constantin  Meunier,  From  Drawing  by  Liebermann  .  21 
The  Monument  to  Labour,  Lou  vain,  1909     .  24 

79 


Ecce  Homo,  Tailpiece   28 

Miner  with  Ax     .  .   30 

The  Dockhand    .........  33 

The  Hammerman   35 

Miner  with  Lantern   37 

The  Foundryman   39 

At  the  Watering  Place   41 

The  Quarryman   42 

The  Mower   45 

Grief   47 

Antwerp   48 

Miner  "   51 

Miner  Crouching   52 

Old  Miner   55 

Industry     56 

The  Harvest   58 

The  Port   60 

The  Mine   62 

Returning  from  the  Mine   64 

Puddlers  in  Profile   79 


80 


